Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Saturday April 19, 2008 @12:50PM
from the no-surprises-here dept.

MaineCoasts writes "The Times Online reports that European sellers of the iPhone are braced for 'significant losses' on unsold inventories of first-generation iPhones which must be cleared away for the new 3G versions expected in June. The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"

The flying chairs thing was never as funny as some people think to start off with, and it was frankly done to death ages ago. The fact that every second article now includes some tedious nerd contriving a feeble excuse to include this "joke" (regardless of how offtopic) says more about their unimaginative, phony and downright sheeplike sense of humour... or lack of it.

Uhmmmm, since I'm the tedious nerd with unimaginative, phony, and downright sheeplike sense of humor, perhaps you'd like to explain what is news about the smoke and mirrors that is the new iPhone?Speculation has already started on what exact second it will be released. Betting pools have started on which Hollywood star will be the first to sport the new iPhone. Industry pundits have already covered > 99% of all possible news angles regarding the release of the new iPhone, and yet people mindlessly drive

GPS isn't that useful in urban areas.The accuracy when you can't get 3 satellites is no better than using cell tower information.And many times you can't even get that. Indoors of course, nothing at all.In the country, it is better, but then, most of the time when I want directions for Google Maps I don't care if it positions me to a "mere" half a kilometre of precision (which is about as bad as it'll get - in city you can often get to within one or two hundred metres).

Battery drain and increased internal demands of GPS on the already space-tight iphone isn't worth that for my uses of it.

So. Basically, hell yeah I'll take what amounts to a UMPC - especially at a discount.And for the/. crowd - it now runs linux... (Damn Small Linux at the moment - more to come I'm sure - and still needs work on, oh, the radio and touchscreen)

In some city centres surrounded by skyscrapers, possibly. My N95 can usually locate me to exactly the right street even in the centre of Nottingham. I don't often find the need to use it (I've got dedicated ones for on my motorbike and for hiking) but whenever I have wanted to use it, it's always been pretty accurate.

updated software has fixed the MMS issues.Very few phones have camera's with flashI disable flash most of the time now anyways,

I will take 3g and either uncrippled bluetooth for a GPS dongle, or my favorite a car adaptor dock, with a GPS receiver built in. That way GPS runs off my car battery not killing the iphones battery. Copy paste, is a software/interface issue. figure it out and release it as a patch apple.

If you're after a lens, you need to know what you want to do first. If you're after low-light lenses, there aren't many choices. Just look at lenses with a maximum aperture of f2.0 or wider in fixed focal lengths. If you are after zooms, then f2.8 is considered a low-light zoom. But I prefer the fixed focal lengths - my low-light lenses are: 28mm f1.4, 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4, 135mm f2.0, 200mm f2.0.

Usually there is only one such option for these in a given manufacturer's lineup.

Just prove that most of us europeans aren't retarded enough to fall for their stupid pricing schemes. I would never buy a fucking phone for 18.000 sek of which only 3.000 sek or so was payed at purchase.Nerd as I am I don't have any friends, girls and don't do phone calls. So the "services" I get for the monthly fee are more or less completely useless. Just give me the gadget!

I've been thinking about getting one and unlock it but I'm to lazy to read how it's done, but I've got the impression it's easy and y

Just prove that most of us europeans aren't retarded enough to fall for their stupid pricing schemes.

I bet that we Europeans are retarded enough, but we have a much healthier marketplace for the moment.

Not to be pessimistic, but I can only imagine that O2, T-Mobile and Orange are looking at their excess inventory, looking across at the US market with envious eyes, and are then beginning to try to figure out how they can conspire to handicap the EU market, just like US politicians have been paid to do over there.

Don't you think that unlockability (without voiding warranties) is a major issue for European consumers? Swapping SIMs when traveling is something that seems taken for granted. Even my can-barely-turn-on-her-computer mother-in-law does it when she travels between England and Spain.

The only reason this is common is that roaming charges are so insane. When networks were charging people 50p/minute for roaming on top of the call charges, it made sense to get a local pre-pay sim if you were planning on making more than 10 minutes of phone calls. The European regulator made them reduce prices recently, but I'm not sure how much impact this had. In the US, you have to travel a lot further before you get hit with roaming charges (unless you live very far north or south).

Just prove that most of us europeans aren't retarded enough to fall for their stupid pricing schemes. I would never buy a fucking phone for 18.000 sek of which only 3.000 sek or so was payed at purchase.

Nerd as I am I don't have any friends, girls and don't do phone calls. So the "services" I get for the monthly fee are more or less completely useless. Just give me the gadget!

I've been thinking about getting one and unlock it but I'm to lazy to read how it's done, but I've got the impression it's easy and you can do it yourself nowadays? But I don't think they are sold in Sweden yet so I still have to buy it from some other place and then someone have probably already unlocked it and try to earn some cash on it.

I'm from Canada, and perhaps it's a blessing that it isn't available in Canada yet:)

I purchased mine in the states and unlocked it to use with Rogers. I've done a bunch for friends too. Gets easier by the day (Thank iphone dev team!)

Anyways, my point is, It's probably cheaper if you buy one from somewhere else and unlock it and use it on your own terms. No pesky contracts, you pick the plan that you want (or keep your existing plan).

I've never used my cellphone so much before the iPhone. It just does so much. It's an amazing device.

Yeah, I don't own an mp3 player yet and my phone are real piece of shit so I'm intrested in it alright but not at the price they want me to pay. And also as I said it's no sold here. But if someone tell me how to get one in Sweden which aren't unlocked (like can I order from apple.uk or something?) and also tell me if all current versions can be unlocked and if it requires anything special (does pwnage or whatever it was called do it all for me?) then I may get one.I feel so sad for the suckers which buy an

I'm from Canada, and perhaps it's a blessing that it isn't available in Canada yet:)

The irony is that they two companies that support GSM here are the same company, since Microcell (aka Fido) got bought out by Rogers. Knowing how Rogers work they will probably only sell the iPhone on the Rogers brand and force you to pay a penalty to move from Fido to Rogers! Yes I am cynical. Then again, I would rather get my iPhone from someone else, other than Rogers and unlocked.

No, since it just cost slightly less and have much less functionallity. Also I would so much prefer the new Sony mp3-players, cowon d2, Sansa Clip/Fuze, over an iPod.

Over here you can buy a card with credits on it which you spend if you make phone calls, so it's easy to have a cellular phone which doesn't cost anything / month if you don't use it. Or you can get a real cheap subscription with free calls within the network and eventually other networks and/or landlines to.

If I could get the iPhone for 3000 sek as a gadget and then only pay for the phone calls I would actually make I would probably have gotten one by now.

I'm not sure what the current price is compared to your 3000 sek but it's REALLY easy to unlock iPhones now. About a dozen different programs to do it for Windows and Macs, probably Linux as well if you look around since several are open source. It's so simple now you just plug it in and click "Unlock" and it's done in less than 5 minutes. There's nothing that prevents you from walking into an Apple store, picking one up in a box and unlocking it as soon as you get home. The unlockers also activate it s

Yeah, I have no issues at all with buying an unlocked iPhone, but it's not as it's sold or intended to sell (I guess the price you pay even say with a subscription? Guess they should make it more binding..)Something which indeed prevent me from walking into an Apple store are that there aren't any in Sweden;D

If I could order a locked new phone I would, I don't feel like ordering an unlocked one if someone have added a lot on the price and it's really easy to do, but it's more tempting then buying one with

I can only speculate at what 18.000sek would buy..but if you want to see prices that are at least equally ridiculous, hop a plane to Canada. We have a triumverate monopoly here that keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average of $50-60 CAD ($50-60 USD or 1 Canadian dollar = 5.93180398 Swedish kronor,) per month. And thats without any support for data-If you want 3G data it will cost you another 50-60 on top of that. Furthermore only one of our carriers is GSM and its been sa

I at some time converted the american prices for the iPhone + subscription and it ended up being 13.500-18.500 sek in total. It's not sold in Sweden afaik so I have no idea what it would cost here.Yeah, I know there doesn't live that many people in Canada and that it's huge, northern Sweden are poorly covered outside bigger cities aswell and we have much higher population density I guess even thought it's low by almost anyones standards.

Over here you can get an unlocked phone without subscription and put in

keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average of $50-60 CAD ($50-60 USD or 1 Canadian dollar = 5.93180398 Swedish kronor,) per month

Mmmmm - go to 7-11, buy a Speakout phone... $65-$100 for a phone (or free - sometimes they run a "buy $100 of airtime and the phone is free" offer), then buy some time - the time lasts for 365 days without expiring and air time runs at $0.20/minute. My average cost is $6/month.

You could also go to PC (President's Choice/Loblaws) which is also $0.20/minute... the time only lasts 60 days which is not as good as 7-11 Speakout's 365 days but the phones have unlimited web access, including googlemaps, gmail etc. for a flat $5/month, run java etc. etc. The point is that, while I am definitely disappointed with the cell providers in Canada, your previous statement:

"We have a triumverate monopoly here that keeps you from walking out of the cell phone store without paying an average o

Not sure if this is only applicable in Denmark, but I'm pretty sure the law stems from EU. We have to put on the advertisements/price listings what the minimum total will be, if a phone is costing a minimum of 18.000SEK, people are probably gonna go for a Nokia or Samsung instead.

I don't know how it is here, I have a note on my door so I don't get paper ads, I mostly see them on TV and there the resolution is so crappy so they use that to show unreadable text for half a second with whatever things may apply to the offer.

I visited siba.se and they seem to show total price now. But the fucking blown out price in red should be the total, not in store =P

Of course I see something good in it also being a phone, but since I very rarely use a phone I don't need some high volume subscription service, a pre-paid card would do or something similair there I pay for the small things I may use. Now it's like eating for free 5 times per day in an all you can eat buffet while having anorexia;D

Get yourself a cheap phone from a few years ago off ebay. Decent battery life and a clear display. Then you can send your texts, phone for a taxi and use it in emergencies. Sorted.

Maybe you could use the cash you save to get yourself a girl for the evening? Just a thought...

Because "don't do phone calls" was a round off, I guess I may do cellular phone calls like 2 times a month, and regular ones 1-2 times a day, but I could see myself scrapping the SIP-client and only use cellular if my phone wasn't shit.

I had an Ericsson T28s (3500 sek or something) which I liked, was quite "high end" and expensive then but had 60h battery life. Replaced with Samsung C55 (1200 sek) which I killed by some food wetness, had good battery life and slim form factor and was cheap with no extra fu

Get yourself a cheap phone from a few years ago off ebay. Decent battery life and a clear display.

Hardly worth the hassle of eBay unless you want a specific old model, to be honest. Brand new phones with a similar specification to (e.g.) the old Nokia 3310 are still being sold today, but as bottom-of-the-range models. These cost next to nothing, even on pay-as-you-go (actually, I suspect that most of them *are* sold on pay-as-you-go to people who just want a cheap, no-frills phone "just in case").

Seriously... this is a public site so get your fucking head out of your fucking ass and quit complaining about the gp's language. Retarded is a very mild form of abuse in europe, and in comparison to the US market it is a perfectly accurate assessment. What on earth makes your think that he should aim his language at your particular definition of clean?

Gee. If you measure your social ceiling in relation to slashdot then you have your own problems. You appear to make the same cultural assumptions about the use of language on this site that the GP did. Perhaps you are incapable of recognising your lack of insight

I understand your opinion, but I don't agree with you forcing it on other people. Cultural standards for acceptable language vary the world over. In many places the OP's language would be considered quite civil. Please don't confuse a global forum like slashdot with a quiet local meeting - people vary a lot. The issue that I took with you was that by ignoring his actual point, focusing on his language rather than what he said, you added to the noise in this place, and detracted from the signal. In some sens

Until the phone is available unlocked it's worthless to me. I need to travel between the US and UK, and don't want to have to pay extortionate roaming fees when I already have sims for networks either side.

If you visit any international airport you'll find plenty of people travelling in and out who switch their handsets sims. It's hardly unusual.

You're quite right that the iPhone can be unlocked easily, but that's not the point. It shouldn't be limited to those with the technical savy to do so. Anyone should be able to buy an iPhone handset and use it on any network they please.

In the not so distant past, iPhones unlocked with the simple as pie hack you suggest were bricked by a subsequent Apple update. Non techies should not have to worry their unlocked iPhone may die in this way.

Whether we can hack our way around the roadblocks is irrelevant. We shouldn't have to play these games with devices we spent a lot of money on.

What I find interesting is.. oh wow, only 50 posts in the first 90 minutes? Where are the fanboys now? Seven months ago, when I predicted with prefect accuracy that Apple would fail, [slashdot.org] you couldn't get them to STFU. They were gaa gaa over the iPhad, and now look... They are nowhere to be found. Fair weather fanboys as always. Those fanboys aren't real Mac fans. They don

I'm an Apple-critical Mac user (love their designers, really dislike their business practices), and I don't own an iPhone for many of the reasons described in this thread. But the problems with the iPhone are eminently fixable, and I expect the iPhone to become a stronger product over the next couple of years. In Europe, it is a flop. But in the US, it is doing well, and the surprise success it is enjoying as a status symbol among the elite of less-developed nations (as awkward as that is, perhaps, for thos

The three UK retailers (Apple, 02 and Carphone Warehouse) have all dropped the price from £269 to £169 a few days ago. They claim this price is valid till the 1st of June. It's still stupidly priced - I can go into a shop, buy one for £169, go home, jailbreak it and that's it. If I follow what they want me to do and sign up for the semi-unrelated contract, I get screwed for £35/month and for some reason have to agree to being screwed monthly.

By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.

Say no to the new pricing model - if you have to, buy an iPhone, but get another phone for free on a new contract and sell it to recoup the costs.

By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.

I have a feeling the window of opportunity Apple opened by the unlimited internet deals they struck has now been closed.

Back in September, unlimited deals were rare and the Apple contract looked like a good deal. Now, data costs are dropping like a stone and the iPhone I was sure I was going to buy in November when my Orange contract expires is starting

I've still haven't seen one in the UK. Do they exist? Has anyone actually bought one? Does anyone buy personal phones on contracts in the UK?

Buying a pay-as-you-blow phone is far more attractive for most people I know. My provider, Tescos, knocked £80 off the price of my last phone and unlocked it after I'd bought £30 worth of credit. How can any retailer compete with that?

You know, you're right... I've not seen anyone here in the UK actually using one yet. Plenty for sale - pretty much every town has at least 2 places selling them.For me, I find that the combo of a BLackberry curve and an iPod Touch does me fine: I'd probably prefer to have them in a single unit but I learned a long time ago that mobile internet over cellular networks sucks, so it's kinda helpful to know that the device in my left pocket gets crappy internet everywhere while the device in my right pocket get

I'm having trouble determining whether above post was a joke... In case it was, I guess I missed the "woosh". Either way, I'm sure some people are actually asking the question, even on/.

3G doesn't refer to the memory, but refers to the network capabilities and how fast it can handle data. Currently, iPhones work with EDGE, which is essentially a souped-up version of GPRS. EDGE is generally described as 2.5G, and is not very fast.
The new iPhones will be 3G (HSDPA/UMTS on GSM networks), providing a much

3G doesn't refer to the memory, but refers to the network capabilities and how fast it can handle data. Currently, iPhones work with EDGE, which is essentially a souped-up version of GPRS. EDGE is generally described as 2.5G, and is not very fast.

3G is not just about bandwidth, but has many other advantages over 2G.

A big advantage of 2.5G over 3G is the range, as you with 3G have to be within 2km of the base station (antenna). This is also the reason you will probably have to use 2.5G outside cities.

The new iPhones will be 3G (HSDPA/UMTS on GSM networks)...

No. There exists no such thing as UMTS on GSM networks. There are UMTS networks and there are GSM networks. (And most 3G phones can handle both networks.)

I wonder, after we take into account the exchange ratio will it be a better deal for US customers to buy an imported iphone at the expected clearance prices? Unfortunately Apple almost certainly has contracts with distributors that prevent them from stepping on each others' territory like that, so they won't be sold directly to the US, but through 3rd parties who will tack on their own profit margin.

Still, since iPhone unlocking is so easy now, I'd consider buying one if it worked out to be cheap.

You make a good point, but cost is important too. I'm very much a "good enough" kind of guy when it comes to tech... I'm content to stay a couple of versions away from the state of the art. Yeah, browsing will get faster soon... but I already have my laptop for when I want to do extended browsing sessions. For me I think the iphone would be very much of a "pull it out of my pocket to google something" kind of device, mostly textual and low-bandwidth.

I've got to say I notice a big difference in 3G performance, although not as much as advertised.I get about a 180-200 Kbps per second connection with EDGE and about a 2 Mbps connection with a 3G modem (the advertised speeds being 3.4-7 Mbps, depending on who's doing the advertising).

That's in London though, the UK is generally better for connectivity thanks to having a dense population in fairly small populated area (particularly in the South East of England).

Are these the same "sources" that attempted to screw with Apple's stock price by inventing a "whisper number" of one million expected iPhone sales at release when numbers of expected sales were in the 150 to 350 thousand mark?

Tough being an apple zealot these days, isn't it?
After 20 years of putting up with complete and utter horseshit from the Stockholm Syndromed Windows Wankers, Apple and the Mac are on top of the world again, and Apple is releasing the hardware that defines every industry they enter. It's never been a better time to be an Apple Zealot, especially with the naysayers able to dine on so much crow.

The iPhones retarded lack of Adobe Flash and Sun Java support makes its web browsing experience, for me at least, abysmal.

Until the iPhone can hold a candle to one of these [dynamism.com]
running Xubuntu ( Ubuntu + Xfce ) , then I will just consider it a toy, with its one redeeming feature being multi-touch integrated with a great UI.

I was going to post saying that its not their fault flash doesn't support their architecture, but this isn't really an excuse as they have the money and ability to port flash to it themselves.OTOH i browse the web with flashblock and only have it enabled on bbc.co.uk (they have iplayer anyway) youtube (they have that too) and other video sites (wont the youtube trick work for them too?). The Java problem sounds like a biggy, i think sun offered to port it but, apples SDK blocks it. I only use Java for a cou

With respect to your critiques of the iPhone, you're comparing a device that is 4-6 times as much and weighs almost 4 times as much as the iPhone.

It's got a number of features that the iPhone doesn't... but i could say the UX is a toy compared to a regular mobile laptop, and that such a laptop is a toy compared to a desktop replacement, so really everyone should lug around a desktop replacement.

The iPhone easily slips into a pocket, and fills it's intended role well. I'm very happy to see the shock it's given the market. There are 4-5 iPhone-esq phones that should be available in the US in 2008, which will hopefully encourage more than incremental improvements from apple.

The UX is 5.9x3.75x1.5 inches and weighs 1.2 pounds. It's certainly tiny, but it's not something that would fit into most pockets. They're built different roles, and should be judged as such.

The iPhones retarded lack of Adobe Flash and Sun Java support makes its web browsing experience, for me at least, abysmal.

What kind of sites are your browsing that require *Java* these days? If the bulk of your daily visits is to sites with scientific visualizations, I can buy this, but most of the web has been Java free since the applet craze of the late 90s passed.

At any rate, yes, if bulk of your web browsing requires Flash or Java, then, yes, the iPhone is certainly not how you should be doing it. There

The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"

That's a really poor showing. The Nokia N95 sold more than a million units in the UK alone in 2007; that's a single model and a single country, and it didn't have anywhere near the hype surrounding the iPhone release:

Troll,you can say anything about the iPhone (and Apple) but being clunky can't be further from the truth...

If someones software is clunky then it's Nokias... The N95 release has been delayed much in the US cause the firmware was not stable enough... ANd is this one of the Nokia phones with 21 function keys and hierarchical menus that go down to level 9? That what I'd call clunky.

Even your comparison is deeply flawed: How long has the N95 been available and how many providers support it? The N95 is availa

Well our defintions of "stable", "crippled" and "intuitive" certainly differ.You think Nokias interface "isn't intuitive", I think its crap, utter crap and I always hated fiddling with the settings and gazillion of function keys.

Nokias software tends to get stable after a few revisions. At least they now allow you to flash your phone so you don't have to go to some service point and pay 40 Euros for an upgrade of a buggy firmware.

And well crippled: I can phone, send SMS, take photos, add and edit contacts,

Somehow, I doubt that Apple will release a 3G iPhone straight to Europe and NOT have it available in the US. In order to be used in the US, it needs FCC approval. The FCC operates an open approvals process, with the devices being displayed on their web site for everyone to see and comment on.

That approvals process takes time. I somehow doubt that it only takes 6-8 weeks.